


Call It What You Want

by twilightstargazer



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Friends With Benefits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-17 01:23:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13648491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilightstargazer/pseuds/twilightstargazer
Summary: “You know, if I had known that you were this funny the first time around I would have definitely asked you for your number earlier,” he tells her, and she bites down on her bottom lip, taking note of how his eyes follow her movements.“Well nothing’s stopping you now,” she chimed, fishing her phone out of her back pocket. “Better late than ever, am I right?”He smirks down at her. “You absolutely are.”-or, Clarke candefinitelymanage to have a casual relationship with Bellamy.





	Call It What You Want

**Author's Note:**

> BFF fill for the prompt: What started out as a casual relationship actually last longer than anybody expected

The first time Clarke hooks up with Bellamy, she didn’t even get his name until after he’s had his hand down her pants and she’d left several hickies across the skin of his neck. All she knew was that she was still bitter about her last break up and that she was probably at least two tequila sunrises past tipsy enough to start finding the dark and surly bartender a bit more than attractive.

(Sue her okay, the guy has nice hands and Clarke loves a guy with nice hands.)

(And besides, she gets to find out just how nice they are no more than half an hour later which is always a good thing.)

It’s not like she expected it to go anywhere, but when they run into each other a few weeks later at a house party, it only takes two rounds of beer pong before she’s pulling him into the bathroom by his collar, lips messily sliding over the others.

“You know,” he starts, as casual as he possibly could while untucking her shirt, “I do have an apartment just a block from here. We don’t have to hook up in some stranger’s bathroom. Unless you’re into that of course. I’m not one to judge.”

She maybe spends half a minute mulling over it before twining her hand in his and squeezing it. “Deal.”

What would have been a normal 10-minute walk takes almost twice as long as they find themselves stealing kisses against the wall of buildings and copping a feel in the shadows of the street lamps. She’s glad that the streets are mostly empty at this time of night because when they finally stumble into his apartment her blouse is completely unbuttoned, barely hanging off her shoulders and his fly is undone, one of her hands just slipping in to grasp at his dick.

It’s safe to say that she doesn’t return home until the next morning, hair a mess and the night before’s eyeliner reduced to (what she hopes can pass as) a tasteful smudge, as she embarks on the provisional walk of shame.

Raven catcalls when she walks into their apartment the next morning looking well and thoroughly fucked with a giant Starbucks cup in hand.

“Saw you leave with tall, dark and handsome last night,” she smirks, poking at a bruise under her left ear and dancing out of the way before Clarke could smack her hand away. “New boy toy?”

She shrugs.

“Something like that,” she says, taking a sip of her coffee.

“Well I for one am glad you’re finally getting over Lexa,” says Raven, tugging on a lock of her hair. “And by the best way too: by getting under someone else.”

“Well I mean, not to get into semantics and all that, but I was technically  _ over  _ him,” Clarke teases before taking another sip of coffee.

Raven outright cackles.

“You’re giving me all the details over brunch,” she tells her before shoving her in the direction of the bathroom. “Go get ready. I want to know just how good he scrambled your eggs last night.”

“Oh my god Raven,” she giggles, “Relax.”

She ignores her in favour of slumping down on the couch and yelling, “Time’s a wastin’, Griffin!”

-

She doesn’t really think about Bellamy much after that. He was just some random guy she met at a bar and then coincidence brought them together again at a party just a short while later. Sure the sex was good, possibly even the best she’s ever had with a guy, but that was all it was ever going to be. Just this little blip in her life, a story to tell during girls night.

Except then, about a month after the party, she runs into him in the produce section of the supermarket and he’s somehow even  _ hotter  _ in the daylight, when she’s not half drunk and squinting to see through the dim lights.

He’s dressed in grey sweatpants and a hoodie, and has a pair of black frame glasses perched lopsidedly on the bridge of his nose. He has  _ freckles _ , and she’s not sure if she wants to draw them or map constellations across his cheeks with her lips.

His lips quirk up into a half smirk when he sees her at the end of the aisle, giving her a not so subtle once over, and Clarke is suddenly aware that she’s wearing a pair of running shorts and an oversized, paint stained t-shirt that reads ‘pizza made me do it’ from back in her college days.

“Hi,” he says as he comes to a stop just a few feet away from her. His trolley is filled with all sorts of things like whole grain pasta and spinach and even a package of brussel sprouts, and Clarke tries to inconspicuously hide her basket of frozen waffles and a six pack of diet coke behind her back.

“Hi,” she replies, cheeks pinking just a little. He’s still infuriatingly hot.

There’s a short awkward pause between them during which she probably stares a hole into the cans of kalamata olives over his left shoulder before Bellamy ends it with a slight chuckle, ducking his head as he runs a hand through his hair.

“So I don’t really know what the proper etiquette is when you run into a one night stand out of the blue,” he confesses, making her giggle, and just like that the awkwardness disappears.

“Neither do I, but in my personal opinion it’s always safe to act as if you’ve just bumped into a great aunt of some kind,” she says.

Bellamy makes a face, though he still remains smirking at her. “I’m not sure if that means you have a lot of experience running into one night stands in public or you equate them to your great aunts.”

“Definitely the latter,” she says solemnly, and he laughs again, this time heartier than the last.

“You know, if I had known that you were this funny the first time around I would have definitely asked you for your number earlier,” he tells her, and she bites down on her bottom lip, taking note of how his eyes follow her movements.

“Well nothing’s stopping you now,” she chimed, fishing her phone out of her back pocket. “Better late than ever, am I right?”

He smirks down at her. “You absolutely are.”

-

It’s not like she didn’t really know what to expect after giving Bellamy her number. They met through a random hookup in a bathroom stall. She only knows a handful of things about him, like his name, the fact that he works as a bartender, and that his apartment was pretty clean for a single guy in his late twenties.

So yeah, she knows exactly zero things about him other than those and that he’s fucking phenomenal at sex, which is why his number just  _ sits  _ there on her phone, her fingers lingering over the call button a few times when it’s late and she’s desperate before she just turns to her trusty old vibrator.

But then Raven goes out of town on vacation with her girlfriend and while Clarke was initially ecstatic about having the entire apartment all to herself for a week, she gets hit with just how fucking lonely she feels whilst in the middle of running a bath.

It’s bullshit, she tells herself as she lowers her body into the water. The room is filled with steam and she even lit a few jasmine scented candles that mix with her rose bubble bath. She has absolutely no reason to feel lonely, and with that thought in mind she grabs her vibrator and gets to work on chasing those thoughts out of her head.

Except it doesn’t really work, not even when she makes herself come twice, and in a fit of frustration she grabs her phone and starts scrolling through her contact list.

This time she doesn’t think twice about hitting Bellamy’s name, pulling up their empty text history and tapping out an innocuous ‘hi’.

She spends the next seven minutes it takes for him to reply cursing herself for doing something so stupid until her phones chimes with his response.

It’s just a ‘hi’, like hers, but it still gives her a little thrill and she finds herself tapping out the following message.

_ So my roommate is out of town for the week, I ordered way too much Thai food and my bathtub is way too big for just one person. Want to come over? _

They twenty seconds it takes for him to type out his reply were perhaps the longest twenty seconds in her entire life.

_ Sure _ .

Biting her lip, Clarke texts him the address, followed by a ‘door’s open’ with an accompanying smirk emoji.

She sets her phone down on the edge of the tub and tries to relax, pretending as though her entire body isn’t going to be on edge until he finally shows up.

When he does eventually arrive he still knocks on the door and she bites back a smile.

“I told you, it’s open,” she calls out, and there’s a second before she hears it squeak open.

“That’s not very safe,” he remarks, and she can hear him toeing off his shoes. “You don’t know what kind of strangers might wander inside.”

“Hopefully the good looking kind,” she says, when he appears in the bathroom doorway. “Hi Bellamy.”

His eyes are drawn to her chest first, hidden by a layer of foamy white bubbles, before travelling up to her face and she grins.

“Hey Clarke,” he waves.

She lets herself blatantly check him out, and to her delight he actually reddens. He’s not wearing glasses this time, and looks a lot more put together in jeans and a maroon sweater, but his hair is still a windswept mess and his lips quirk up into a smirk when she looks at his face once more.

“Well don’t just stand there,” she says, scooting back in the tub and allowing the water to splash about. “I did tell you it was a big tub.”

He grins boyishly at her before pulling his sweater over his head and it’s just a moment later he’s slipping inside, cradling her jaw as he gives her a deep, wet kiss.

-

From then on they text each other at least once every fortnight, just meaningless conversation before someone ends up inviting the other over. She learns him in bits and pieces the longer they continue doing this too; she finds out that he’s an elementary school teacher who hates milk in his tea but won’t drink coffee unless it’s completely whited out, owns more shades of red clothing than necessary, and has a wayward cat that only shows up when he shakes the treat bag.

It’s the same thing with respect to her too she likes to think. Clarke never really expected random booty calls to morph into something else, but by the time spring rolls around they’re almost friends, and when school closes for the summer she’s actually comfortable enough with him that she’s shown him a few of her art pieces.

Raven’s finally caught on by the start of summer too, but in her defence, she always knew that Clarke was hooking up with someone, but had no idea that it was the same guy for the past seven and a half months until she walked in on them post-coital.

It wasn’t anything overly incriminating; Clarke was sat atop the kitchen counter while Bellamy made them grilled cheese. She was teasing him about something a student in his class said when Raven interrupted with a pointed clearing of her throat.

“Hi,” Clarke says, after a moment, hopping down from the counter. Her cheeks are flaming and she tugs down the hem of her boyshorts. Meanwhile Bellamy remains unfazed, calmly flipping the sandwich in the skillet.

“Hi,” says Raven, flat.

“I didn’t realise you were coming home so early.”

She snorts, “Evidently,” and lets her eyes drift towards Bellamy.

She didn’t think the flush on her cheeks could get any darker and  _ yet _ .

“This is Bellamy,” she says, placing a hand on his bicep and giving it a light squeeze.

He finishes sliding the sandwich onto a plate and wipes his hand on a kitchen towel before offering it to Raven. “Nice to meet you,” he says, giving her hand a shake, “Can I interest you in a grilled cheese sandwich?” 

“I’ll pass thanks,” she says.

He shrugs, “Suit yourself,” and then passes the plate over to Clarke before heading over to the door to start pulling on his shoes.

“You’re not eating?” she frowns.

“Nah. Forgot I still have a stack of essays on the revolutionary war that need grading.”

“Subte segway,” she snorts and it gets a smirk out of him.

“Maybe,” he allows before pulling the door open. “Later Clarke.”

She watches him walk out, the door clicking shut behind him, dreading to turn back around and face the situation left for her to handle in the kitchen.

“So,” Raven chirps and Clarke mentally winces. “You had a sleepover with tall, dark and handsome from Monty’s housewarming party huh? How long have you two been dating?”

Clarke rolls her eyes and grabs a dishcloth to start wiping down the counters for the sake of having something to do with her hands. “We’re not dating,” she says, sliding the pan in the sink. “Neither of us want nor do we have time for a relationship right now. It’s just… casual.”

“Casual,” says Raven, unimpressed. “You’ve been hooking up with him for about what? Seven months now and you still insist that it’s  _ casual _ ?”

“Um. Yes?”

She throws her hands up. “Clarke, babe, I love you, but we both know that you have no idea how to do casual.”

She sputters. “I can totally do casual!”

Raven just stares at her. “Right, yeah, sure. That’s why he was over on a Sunday morning making you breakfast.”

She doesn’t have a proper comeback for that so she just settles on a, “Shut up Raven,” and flicks some water at her face before walking away.

-

She avoids inviting Bellamy over to her place after that, and as a result she ends up spending more time at his place instead which wouldn’t be a problem except, well.

She can’t stop thinking about Raven’s words.

The first night she stays over fully, he invites her to keep a spare toothbrush in his cabinet as well as a spare change of clothes in his closet.

(“It’s only because you keep stealing my shirts and I never get them back,” he tells her when he reveals the fact that he cleared out the bottom drawer for her.)

By the time the next month rolls around, not only does she have a spare toothbrush and a change of clothes over at his place, there’s a bottle of body wash in the shower next to the shampoo and conditioner that she uses as well as a box of tampons in the cupboard under the sink. She managed to strongarm him into keeping a box of what he likes to refer to as ‘diabetes in a box’ in the pantry (“It’s called cinnamon toast crunch, you uncultured swine.”) and a six pack of iced tea in the fridge right next to his shitty beer.

There’re even several mugs lined up on display on the top cabinets that she made for him when she was learning how to use a kiln properly, all of them perfect, and he still remains adamant that he uses the very first one she made for him, the lopsided ugly mess of blue and white with a chip on the base.

Frankly, it’s the furthest thing from casual ever, but she continues to do so every time Raven chooses to bring it up, even if she spent the last night curled up around his body.

Clarke knows that they’re on the precipice of something-- or hell, maybe they’ve even fallen off that edge already-- but everytime she looks at him or every time he gives her that stupid half smile, every time she’s with  _ Bellamy _ , her heart can’t help but give a little thrill, reminding her of the feelings she’s trying so hard to repress.

It gives a thrill when he cooks her breakfast, showing off the fact that he’s a spectacular cook who can make everything from eggs benedict to plain chocolate chip waffles.

It gives a thrill whenever his arm slings around her waist after they’ve had sex and draws her closer, dropping a kiss on her shoulder.

It gives a thrill whenever she’s on her period and he just cuddles her, curled up together watching old X-Files reruns while eating ice cream out of the carton as his hand rubs circles into her spine.

It gives a thrill whenever she has to leave him, reminding her that a little piece of it always stays behind with him.

By the time September rolls around she finds herself struggling not to say those three little words every time she so much as glances at him and she’s almost certain that he is too from the way he lets his lips linger whenever he presses a kiss to her forehead.

“Jesus fucking Christ, just call it what it is already,” says Raven one night when Clarke is sitting on the couch looking for something to watch. Bellamy’s sister is in town and he’s having dinner with her tonight which means Clarke’s free to do whatever she wants.

Which turns out to be moping on the couch waiting for him to come back but whatever. She’s fine.

Raven kicks her lightly in the shin. “Just tell the boy that you want to date him. That way I don’t have to put up with the whole kicked puppy routine every time he leaves.”

“I’m not a kicked puppy,” Clarke grumbles. “And I never said that I want to date him.”

“Oh please. You think he’s gorgeous, you want to kiss him, you want to hug him, you want to love him,” she sing-songs and ducks out of the way of Clarke’s oncoming foot.

“Stop quoting Miss Congeniality at me,” she says, pointing the remote threateningly at her.

“Come on,” she says, serious at last as she sits next to her on the couch. “Have you thought about just asking him out?”

Clarke pauses, dropping her eyes to the duvet covering her lap.

“Well, we might have been on a few dates already I guess,” she mumbles.

Clarke does not dare to look up at her as she thinks back to late night ice cream runs to the diner around the corner, in nothing but their pyjamas. The movies they catch on Saturday afternoons and how it’s the only time Bellamy will acquiesce in buying them fast food for dinner because it was something his mom used to do for him and his sister when they were younger. They even visited the local museums a few times and he stole quick kisses in between telling her about Nero and Augustus and a whole line of Roman Emperors that she can’t for the life of her remember because she was too busy staring at him and trying to commit the pure joy etched across his face in memory.

She thinks about how the first thing she did when she got back home that day was paint it, and how up til now that painting still resides in the back of her closet hidden from sight by a pile of winter coats.

This time around Raven doesn’t make any caustic remarks and just slings an arm around her shoulders and squeezes.

“You two are idiots,” she tells her, propping up her chin on her shoulder and Clarke laughs watery.

“Yeah,” she says, dropping her head to on top of hers. “Yeah, I know.”

-

Raven goes out of town again two weeks after that revelation and Clarke decides that enough is enough.

So she invites Bellamy over, orders some Thai and pulls the painting out of the closet.

It’s all very reminiscent of the first time she had him over almost a year ago and she’s jittery as she finishes the letter she decided to pen to him, a veritable explosion of feelings on paper.

She’s just slipping it into an envelope when he knocks on the door and she can’t help but smile. They’ve been doing this for so long now and yet he still always insists on waiting for her to let him in. It’s cute.

“Hi,” he says when she opens the door.

“Hey.”

“So I know you said you bought takeout but I was in the area so,” he hands her a brown bag and she peeks inside, grinning widely when she sees the signature logo of her favourite bakery.

“Double chocolate?” she asks, leading him to the kitchen.

Behind her Bellamy scoffs. “What do you take me for, some kind of ameture?”

She ducks her head, grinning. “My bad,” she says, placing the bag on the counter before grabbing two plates from the cabinets. When she turns back around, Bellamy has already grabbed the cutlery as well as a pair of wine glasses and is heading out to the dining table.

It warms her heart and sends a swarm of butterflies blooming in her stomach at what she’s about to do.

“Before we eat,” she says when he starts taking the containers out of the bag, “I have something for you.”

“I never say no to presents,” he smirks, and Clarke rolls her eyes, nudging him with her hip. The simple action helps reassure her and she takes a deep breath.

“Wait here, let me go get it.”

She left the canvas on her bed, and stuck the envelope to the back of it, and when she returns back out in the dining room, the butterflies are back in full force.

Bellamy goes quiet when she shows him the painting, and the smile doesn’t quite fall from his face but instead morphs into something else and she finds herself playing with a stray thread.

“So uh, this is probably well overdue but I’m not very good at-- these kind of things,” she starts, wringing the thread around her finger so tight that the tip goes purple. “It’s a painting, obviously, but there’s also, um, a letter. At the back.”

“You wrote me a letter?” he asks, voice hoarse, as he finally looks back up at her.

Clarke nods, biting her lip. “I know, it’s so Mr Darcy of me.”

It gets a strangled laugh out of him as he pries the letter out of the envelope and she can’t watch as he reads it, eyes hungrily tracing over each letter and word she spent hours agonising over.

It feels like an eternity has passed before he’s finished, and she’s still not looking at him when he reaches out and grabs her hand.

“Clarke…”

She screws her eyes shut. “I know, I know, it’s unbelievably sappy but I just-- I just want you to know that you make me the happiest girl on this planet, with your dumb history rants and random strings of emojis and I… I love you Bellamy Blake,” she tells him, squeezing his hand. “I’ve been in love with you for far too long now to not have told you and I’m sorry for that.”

“Don’t apologise,” he says, standing up and drawing her close. A hand comes up to brush away a stray strand of hair from her forehead and he presses a kiss there.

“I’ve been in love with you from the very moment our paths crossed again in that grocery store. You were just… so fascinating and every minute we spent together I just fell deeper in love with you.” He lets his head rest against hers, fingers twining together. “You’re all I want in this life, Clarke Griffin.”

She’s smiling like an idiot when she tugs him down by his shirt collar to press her lips against his, and so is he.

Clarke’s shared many kisses with him since they’ve been together, but for some reason this one feels different. It messy, what with the two of them unable to stop grinning at the other, and she can’t help but pull him closer, wanting to feel every inch of him against her body. It may be messy and happening at a bad angle and he may have bitten on her lip a bit too hard, but it’s still the most wonderful, perfect kiss she’s ever gotten in her life, and when they pull away her vision is actually blurred from unshed tears.

“You really are the best thing in my life,” he says, arms wrapped around her waist. He drops a quick kiss to the crown of her head. “I hope you know that this means you’re going to be stuck with me from now on.”

She hides her face in his chest, pressing a light kiss to his sternum, feel his heart thrum below.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  
  



End file.
